Despite all the progress that we make, accepting that we can’t do summer camps in France this year and the uncertainty of not knowing if next year it will be possible, is rather frustrating 🙁 . And that is an understatement.
Therefore I needed distraction and I decided not to work this weekend. Instead, I indulged Saturday and Sunday in two of my favourite things to do at home: listening to music and reading.
Music
At our Daring Duck youth club in Xiamen, I loved listening to classic rock, with artists like Dire Straits, Queen, Pink Floyd and Supertramp. That seemed to have rubbed off because I noticed that our son Baruch has several of these songs on his playlist.
But Saturday it was about escaping and I went for classical music. One of the great things about the internet is that we can now share music with each other. Below you find one of my favourites in classical music for dreaming away: Canon and Gigue in D, composed around the year 1700 by the German composer of baroque music Johann Pachelbel.
Reading
At any moment, I usually have 3 books that I am reading. A thriller, a study book and a book for contemplation. This was not a weekend for study so Terry Hayes took me on a trip from Europe to the Middle East and back to Europe with his book ‘I am Pilgrim‘. Hayes really has done his due diligence for this book and in a ferociously fast rhythm, we travel through cultures such as Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and the West, and we get a feeling about how convictions and commitments are often shaped by our childhood.
But for most of us saving the world is not in the cards.
It is often more useful to concentrate on how we can contribute to the community around us. For that I am, already for a while, reading ‘Meditations‘ by the former Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius was a Stoic. Stoicism is a philosophy that states that to become happy, all we need to do, is to live a virtuous and ethical life.
As a Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius had unlimited power. In order to ensure that he remained a good ruler, he famously hired a servant to follow him as he walked through the Roman town squares. The servant’s only role was, whenever Marcus Aurelius was praised, to whisper in his ear, “You’re just a man. You’re just a man. “
‘Meditations’ is not a book that you read in one sitting. It is a collection of hundreds of thoughts from Marcus Aurelius about what it means to be or to become, a virtuous person. And each of these thoughts gives food for thinking yourself. Sometimes I can’t even finish a full page in an evening.
Four examples of thoughts that come from his ‘Meditations’:
Marcus Aurelius:
– “You can’t lose either the past or the future. Because how can you lose what you do not have?“
– On setbacks: “It can ruin your life only if it ruins your character, otherwise, it can’t harm you – inside or out.“
– “Treat what you don’t have as nonexistent. Look at what you have.“
– “And why should we feel anger at the world? As if the world would notice!“
Walking
But a day of sitting and lying down inside doesn’t give me enough energy. Luckily Linda, Baruch and I live in the most beautiful district of The Hague, at walking distance from the centre.
On both days, I, therefore, went out in the afternoon for a walk to the Lange Voorhout, the most characteristic street of The Hague. In the year 1420, the monumental Kloosterkerk was the first building on this street while 100 years later the trees were planted that give the street the nice atmosphere to stroll along the beautiful buildings that date from this period.
As you can see in the short video below (recorded by bike), I walked around the corner towards Plein 1813, built in memory of the Dutch victory over Napoleon. I passed the Mauritskade to enter the Denneweg; the cosy shopping street towards Lange Voorhout. I had the pleasure that they just opened the annual sculpture exhibition there. Then I turned right on the Noordeinde, at the beginning of which the working palace of our king is located, to return back home.
Refreshed in mind and body, I expect that I am ready for a productive week with, hopefully, progress in China with CCTV, in France with our intended new location, and in Holland with finding a solution if indeed no summer camps can be held there this summer.
PS (post scriptum):
I do not want to end this post without a quote that I saw on Mastodon from poet and Harvard professor Jorie Graham when speaking to her students:
“This is your moment, the moment that your soul showed up incarnate. In this world.
It is an astonishing moment to be alive. You could have been born into a lull — instead, you were born into a tipping point. It’s your one life and you’ve entered it at a flexion point — a point when everything you do matters.
How often in history does a soul get to live in such an era? Don’t waste it. Show up for it. With everything you’ve got. Some will invent, some will organize, some will witness, some will grieve, and some will console. Live this life now. Even if in fury and grief, live it. You don’t want to die not having lived.
It’s incredibly easy to find a way around experience rather than through it. But you will have cheated yourself out of your only possession: your life. You are here now. Now is the time to live fully, not hide, not escape.“
